top of page

Rushing

Something that us humans are pretty good at and often we aren’t even sure why.

Take my walk to the station yesterday. Throes of people in the street, even bigger crowds at the station and a few super slow walkers strolling along to add to the mix. I flew past them all (with an awkward British skip-hop) to make sure I didn’t miss my train. Interestingly just moments later, one of the slow walkers appear; and with the same relaxed stroll, they walk right past me down the platform. Immediately I heard myself say, “See! No need to rush”, particularly as I’ve made a deal with myself that I will not run for trains any more (hence the skip-hop). And in all honesty I’m not sure what I was even rushing for.

I got on the train and other scenarios of where and how we rush started occupying my mind. I realised we have accepted rushing as such a commonplace thing in our society that there’s little these days that we don’t rush – commuting, working, showering, eating; you name it, the rush can be applied everywhere.

Sure, the human race is the busiest it has ever been, so as a by-product we could say that rushing has just naturally occurred – but what is this doing to our quality of life? After a few minutes I got absorbed into a song…and it was then that I noticed I’d actually found something I wasn’t rushing. Tapping my foot to the beat and quietly humming the lyrics; I was enjoying it for what it was and of course not rushing to get to the end of it – what would be the point in that?!

For the rest of the day I took my time with everything that little bit more – and my day became so much richer. I caught the smile a lady gave me at the checkout till, I heard the birds singing on my way to a meeting and I felt the sun rays on my face as I stopped for a few moments to soak them up. The funniest part was none of this took up any extra time – all it required was for me to simply be present rather than focusing on the ‘next thing to do’.

I wasn’t late for anything, I didn’t feel stressed or anxious to fit the rest of my day in and in fact by not rushing, I felt I actually had more time?!

Recent Posts
Archive
bottom of page